It was as if Scalzi was afraid to do dangerous things with his characters. Suddenly, the story had become a melancholy and cautious event. Once they were there, I was treated to endless navel gazing. There was plenty of bad time travel material in that sequence to mine for laughs, never mind the need for continuity, but it felt as if Scalzi was in a hurry to get the story to 2012. There was no description of the trip into the black hole. For example, the characters hatched a plan to go back in time to stop their own TV show, took off on their shuttle, then voilà! they were back in time with the turn of a page. I also felt the story skipped parts that Scalzi deemed unnecessary because he became more interested in the dialog and meta nature of the story after the first third of Redshirts. Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be a surprise, so I found the GIANT hint when the yeti warned Dahl about the Narrative a bit obvious and unnecessary. After a few pages on the Intrepid, I was aware that the characters were part of a work of fiction. They never felt real or in real danger, which I suppose was the point in the end. The tone of the book was too jocular for me to worry about the characters. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy the book overall. I loved the last Coda-completely loved that last coda. I enjoyed the campiness of the dialog when the Narrative took over. “Redshirts” by John Scalzi.I wanted to like Redshirts by John Scalzi.
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